PARIS, July 4, 2018 (News Wires) — The Louvre has dedicated a new art tour to Beyonce and Jay-Z after pop's biggest power couple shot the video for their latest hit in the Paris museum. The R'n'B stars' hit song Apeshit — which used some of the museum's greatest masterpieces as backdrops — has been viewed 56 million times on YouTube alone since it was released a fortnight ago. Now the Louvre, which already has a tour based on the US rapper will.i.am's hit Smile Mona Lisa, has created another based on the Carters' night in the museum. It follows the video through 17 paintings and sculptures which feature in the six-minute clip, going from the monumental white Greek marble Nike of Samothrace to Marie Benoist's "Portrait of a Negress". The choice of works which they used or posed in front of has been taken as a celebration of black bodies and empowerment in an institution which was built on the spoils of conquest and imperialism. "Portrait of a Negress" was painted in 1800, six years after revolutionary France had abolished slavery in its Caribbean colonies only for Napoleon to reinstate it two years later. But perhaps the most striking image is of Beyonce at the centre of a line of black dancers in front of David's "The Coronation of Napoleon I and the Crowning of the Empress Josephine" singing, "I can't believe we made it."
